Nine years ago, SLA designed New York City's first cat cafe, Meow Parlour.  Over the years, it went from a small cat lounge where kitties roamed freely, to a full non-profit organization working to adopt every kitten that steps foot into the cafe.   Their programs expanded including veterinary services for all the cats coming in, establishing a large fostering network, an annual Cat Camp conference where experts discuss high needs cat treatments such as FIV and diabetes, to cat yoga sessions and little kids events.  Their increase in adoptions including the less desired ones (whether it's three legged cats, black cats to senior cats) grew at a rate that exceeded the comforts of their petite 800sf space. 

We wanted to support them and create a new space for them, while at the heart of the design be whimsy and playful.   The new cat cafe provides lounge space, retail, bakery and back of house services such as vet sessions/foster transfer/individual care rooms for shy or cats that just need to be separated from the others.   A 10' wall of floating shelves arrange to exclaim MEOW, a perfect climbing wall for the cats to play and explore.   Four large pitched roof booths create lounge areas for the four legged friends to meet with their 2 legged visitors!   Small openings and floating shelves weave into the booths allowing the cats to maneuver in and out of the spaces.   A secondary lounge is tucked behind a graffiti folding wall -- behind these walls is a 10' cat tree -- plywood templates spiral around an existing column.  A large shelf wall with integrated bench that simultaneously works as a maze for the cats to explore, hide, and play.